Youth & Sports Projects
Overview
At the World Sport's Forum in March 2000 Louise Fréchette, the UN Deputy Secretary General, stated that, "The power of sports is far more than symbolic. You are engines of economic growth. You are a force for gender equality. You can bring youth and others in from the margins, strengthening the social fabric. You can promote communication and help heal the divisions between peoples, communities and entire nations. You can set an example of fair play."
In November 2003 The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution affirming its commitment to sport as a means to promote education, health, development and peace and to include sport and physical education as a tool to contribute towards achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration. The United Nations declared 2005 to be the Year of Sport and Physical education, stating that "the United Nations is turning to the world of sport for help in the work for peace and the effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals". Although many sport-in-development initiatives had existed prior to the UN interest, there has been a rapid growth in sport-in-development programmes as sport has responded to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
ALFORD-Uganda uses an approach of sports for health in the activities of AIDS awareness campaign aimed at youth in school and out of school. The project is led by youth leaders within community and national colleges in Uganda and ALFORD conducts capacity building, coaching and awareness rising on AIDS with partner institutions and beneficiaries.
Assessment of partners
We work in partnership with colleges, District sports council and rural community who we engage in our sports for health activities. We assess their capacities and resources of each Institutional involved, entering into a partnership before joining forces. Questions such as: "Does our partner match in terms of mission and vision? What resources does each partner bring to the programme? Does the local partner have the capacity to absorb the sports for health project and what can other partners do to enhance this? What measures are in place to encourage learning and to share experiences between the partners involved?" These are frequently asked questions we ask our partner institutional before entering into a formal partnership.
Qualifications of trainers
People who had been trained as sport leaders used to be sent as peer group educators to implement Sport programmes up to rural community level. Qualified volunteers are enlisted.
Sustainability
Our sports for health project train local people. This is capacity building at the level of human resource development. Often the project ends after the training and awareness rising among the youth involved in the project. But what happens next with the individual capacity that has been developed? Is it used by the partner institutions? Are more sport activities offered? To what extent does the target group take part? ALFORD takes great importance to monitor and evaluate the implementation that takes place after the training sessions and to plan measures in the design phase of projects and programmes we believe that will lead to sustainability.
Some of the youth taking part in sports for health training session
YOUTH WARM UP SESSION
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Team work is vital for our youth sports projects